


The Dichotomy of Tony Stark

by writedeku



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clint Barton is deaf, Deaf!Hawkeye, Fluff and Angst, Hurt and comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slow Burn, basically @joss whedon why, but that's from the comics so you can all fight me, tony and steve r so cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-13 00:21:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5687359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writedeku/pseuds/writedeku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark is a brilliant inventor. He can fix anything, mend anyone, build everything- but there's one area in which he is sorely lacking. Tony Stark, for the love of God, cannot fix himself. He loves the machines he works on, puts little pieces of himself into them. But even though those machines are of him, he hates himself too much to ever think of fixing himself. He's the broken gear that prevents the machine from working. But how can you tell people who expect you to fix yourself that you can't?</p><p>Steve Rogers may not be very good with machines, and he isn't really interested in them. But if there's one thing he's willing to learn about, it is the dichotomy of Tony Stark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dichotomy of Tony Stark

**Author's Note:**

> this took me three months, because i kept writing individual scenes and not knowing which direction i wanted to take with it. but now it is here! yay!

"I need air support and I fucking need it now," Clint Barton yells over the comms, dust raining down on his hair. "Please?"

"I'm five minutes out," Tony Stark says, worried. "Hold on."

"Hold on?" Clint snorts. "Did you just tell me to fucking hold on? I've nothing to hold on to! Please tell me you're bringing back up. I cannot- back up. Now."

"I've got the Captain bridal style if that helps," Tony supplies cheerfully. "He's objected to me playing Here Comes the Bride as we land, which is a real shame. What are we looking at again?"

Clint pauses on a rooftop and looks down at what he can only describe as a mess. "A mess."

"Your command of the English language never fails to amaze me, Barton."

"No, it's," Clint struggles to explain, which is tough when you're the first responder. "It's...I think it's a gigantic ball of slime." 

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. My arrows are just sticking to it, and it gives no fucks when they explode."

"Um," Tony gets out. "Keep shooting until we get there?"

"Wow," Clint bites back. "Smartest man on the continent! Amazing intellect!"

"Don't you have bigger things to worry about?" Steve Rogers grinds over the intercom. "Have all civilians been evacuated?"

"Yeah," Clint returns, snapping back into focus. "Slime chose an industrial area next to the river. Only people there were the cleaners and boat handlers. But-"

There's a crackle of static and Tony wishes he could break the sound barrier and get there faster. "Barton!"

There's a cough over the comms. "I'm fine," comes the answer. "Slime is doing a very good job of destroying things."

"How?"

"It spits explosive goo."

There's silence. 

"Right, okay," Tony shakes his head. "There's always a scientific explanation for things."

"The scientific explanation is," Clint says, detonating an explosive arrow. "It's _fucking_ stupid."

Suddenly, a loud build-up of music that sounded very suspiciously like Here Comes the Bride appears behind him, and Clint whips his head around to see Tony setting Steve down on a rooftop with a gentleness that almost defied reason- for everyone else he dropped them and let them deal with the bruised tailbones. 

"I thought I said don't play the song," Steve nudges him, but he's smiling. 

"I didn't," he can practically hear the wink Tony makes. "That was a remix."

"You're impossible," he laughs, blue eyes catching the light of the dying sun, looking so at peace in that moment it is as if he is in the Bahamas, not standing on the ruins of a factory. Then, he turns to face the situation. Immediately he changes, his back straightening and his hands clenching around his shield. The tone of his voice sharpens and deepens- Steve Rogers is becoming Captain America, and the change was so visible you'd think they were two different people. 

"Recon," he snaps, and Tony takes off immediately. Steve is one of the only people that Tony would take orders from. If anyone else had told him to do that, he would've told them to get fucked. "Barton- take left."

Clint catches a lift from Tony and gets deposited on the south most building, anticipating the fact that he'd drop him and managing to land on his feet. 

"It doesn't have a life sign," Tony says through the comms. "Either it's a robot, or it's being controlled."

"Someone can control slime?" Clint snorts and looks around for the nearest pole to bang his head on. "I fucking hate the 21st century."

"Shit!" Tony swears and then goes down in nosedive. "Got another reading. It's running."

"Got your back," Steve replies, leaping from roof to roof and Clint nocks an arrow, downing a building onto the slime. 

Tony swears again, slightly more colourfully. "How much slime does this guy have?"

"What's he look like?"

"There's a mask. Which is made out of slime. What the fuck," Tony wrinkles his nose. "But he's tall and a white male," there's a pause, and he sighs. "Of course he's white."

"I see him," Steve grunts and then jumps off the building. "Catch me." Tony yelps and just manages to grab him before the landing.

"You have to stop giving me heart attacks. The last time you leapt off the Empire State Building, and if I wasn't fast enough you'd be a pancake. And not a Canadian one."

"You caught me."

"That's not the point!" Tony gripes and instinctively rearranges his hands so that Steve can throw his shield. Clint nocks another arrow and blows up the road, halting their assailant's progression. Watching the two of them go and hearing them bicker on the comms was like watching a movie with another dialogue. The two moved like they'd been a team their whole life, but they argued like they wanted each other's throats. Tony drops Steve onto their assailant and lets him get the man in the face with the full force of American displeasure. 

"Something is wrong," Tony bites his lip as he surveys their surroundings. Clint lands soundlessly next to him. 

"What is?"

"A gut feeling. This feels like a trap."

Clint groans. "It always is, isn't it?"

Just as Tony's about to radio Steve in, Steve gets thrown backwards by a wall of slime and he takes off to catch him.

And then, strangely, the man starts speaking. "Avengers," he says, and his voice is without an accent, calm and composed and rather terrifying. "But only three? The archer, the genius and the patriot. You'll need a lot more than that to take me down." His voice is mocking, and for some reason it carries, echoing through the industrial area in a way that grated on Tony's nerves because he knew it was against the laws of physics.

His eyes are wild behind the black mask, roving about like a caged animal. His voice is high pitched and eloquent. For some reason, Tony's afraid of him. Just standing there, the liquid he controls swirling around him while his dark brown curls tumbled down his back, the air of authority that he commanded is almost tangible. 

"Oh, great," Tony replies, masking his fear as he gently puts the Captain down on the roof, next to Clint. "Villian monologuing time. What do you want?"

"The world," the man says easily, too easily. He says it like he already has it, which is  _bullshit_. "But I'll settle for your heads."

"Good luck with that," Tony says dryly. "You'll have a field day with the Hulk."

"But where is he?"

"Shoot him," Tony whispers to Clint and he begins to surreptitiously nock an arrow.

"Why do you want our heads?" Steve asks, eyebrows furrowed. Even after Ultron and all this time Steve still wanted to believe that there's nothing wrong with the Avengers' reputation. It's both endearing and exasperating at the same time.

"You're not very bright, are you?" The man seems amused. "Just like America's future, I presume."

"You can't honestly expect to take over the world because you can manipulate slime, which is a, gross, b, rather sad," Tony slips his mask shut and takes off. "And c, I'm the only one who's allowed to insult the Captain over here."

Perhaps calling it slime was a bit too generic. It looked like water in every aspect except for its colour, which was a deep green and swampy. 

Steve sighs, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards at Tony's rogue flight. Frustrating yes, but the minute Tony didn't do something like this Steve would immediately assume he's an imposter. 

Their assailant moves like a water dancer, graceful and terrifying. He slices upwards with his hands and the slime that is in puddles around it follows his hand and knocks Tony so hard he tumbles across the sky. 

"You," the man grins. "Never learn."

"You should learn to shut the fuck up," Tony grits; with just enough edge to his voice that Steve knows he's hurt. "Can't even hit for chicken nuggets."

The man's face twists like he's eaten a lemon, and then the liquid whirls out and slips over Tony's armour and slowly begins to crush it.

Clint releases his arrow and it hits his mark, the arrow piercing through leather and cloth before thudding into the assailant's side. 

The man howls and the liquid releases Tony in one abrupt movement. He turns to Clint now, his expression livid as Steve turns to help Tony. 

"You!" The man howls. 

"Hi, I'm Hawkeye. Pleased to meet you," Clint rolls his eyes. "Who else?"

"You're _useless_ ," the man blinks, blood dripping out from his side. "You're the one the Avengers has to support."

"Clearly not," Clint returns, but the tightness to his voice suggests he's taking the words to heart more then he should. "Seeing as I'm the only one to injure you. You're just pissed."

"You're disabled," the man is seething now, the liquid bubbling around him. "You're  _broken_."

Clint nocks another arrow. "You want to see broken, dickbag? Because I can  _make_  you broken."

Tony fires off a shot that hits the man on the shoulder, and the smell of singed flesh is overpowering even far away. The man doesn't scream, he's still too busy staring at Clint in a sort of transfixed daze. "You mean nothing," his dreamy tone inexplicably worries Tony- it reminds him of how people act when they believe in something so much that they start to recite prepared speeches. "You do nothing."

Steve growls in displeasure. "What are you attempting to gain from this, again?"

"Fuck off!" Tony opts for instead. "Fucking fuck faced motherfucker!"

Steve turns to Tony with a raised eyebrow and a face full of disapproval. "Shouldn't you be shooting him instead of resorting to crude name calling?"

"He deserves it," he shrugs and attempts another shot, which is blocked by a wall of the slime. "He's messing with our team."

The man surveys them, seemingly unconcerned about his burned side and the blood that's now becoming a steady trickle down his left. "Another day, perhaps," the man grins at them, cocky despite the obvious edge of pain in his voice. "Try to catch me."

Tony yells a warning, but it's too late and the man has vanished in a small puff of...ammonia? Tony's head is reeling. 

"I fucking hate teleporters," he groans, but Clint says nothing. 

* * *

 

"I'm fine," Clint says, and storms off into the tower, hands clenching and unclenching on his bow. "Leave me alone."

The rest of them watch him march off. Steve feels sick, and judging by the expression on the faces of the others, they feel the same. 

Suddenly, Tony is pushing past them, a determined expression on his face. Steve has seen that face before, when people challenge him to build impossible machines.

"I'll go," Tony says firmly, and begins to take purposeful strides. 

Steve is stunned. "I'm sorry?"

Tony's whole body tenses. "I said I'll go," he doesn't even look back. "And don't you dare try to stop me."

"Tony," Steve says, slowly. "You're not the best with emotions."

"I said," Tony doesn't even look back. "I'll  _go_."

Steve lets him go. He's got that tone in his voice, the iron and steel. Tony may not come across as scary, but when he gets that tremor in his voice Steve knows that a storm is coming. 

* * *

 

"Hey," Tony starts, settling down next to Clint, who is facing pointedly away from him. 

"How did you know I was here?" Clint says instead, and gestures at their surroundings. They're in the vents of SHIELD, small and claustrophobia inducing. Tony had to go on his belly at some points. 

"If there's anywhere I would find Hawkeye," Tony says, shrugging. "It would be in the vents."

Clint rubs the back of his neck. "The others sent you?"

"I came of my own accord," Tony stares at a screw embedded in the metal. "Got something to say."

"He was right," Clint bites out, unusually defensive and vulnerable. "I'm no use- I've got no powers worth a damn, my arrows always run out after a while, I'm no good with a gun- I'm partially fucking deaf," he's ranting now, voice rising in pitch and intensity. "I've got no use."

Tony rolls his shoulders- it's a tight fit in the vents, especially with two grown men next to each other. 

"That guy was a dick," he replies. "Personally I'd tell you to take his words with a grain of salt. But Barton- you don't need to have superpowers to be a superhero."

"Look at you," Tony gestures at him. "Who cares if you're almost deaf? I don't. Do you know how much you mean to all the disabled children out there?"

This gets Clint to look at him, just as Tony had known it would. "What?"

"SHIELD does not hold back with the advertising," Tony laughs. "They've got Captain America condoms, for crying out loud. But it was my idea to make hearing aids with Hawkeye on it. Because to all the little children out there who can't hear properly and get picked on or have other disabilities- they need to know they've got a superhero who represents them, that they've got a hero to look up to," Tony grins at him. "They can know that their disability doesn't define them, doesn't mean that they can't live life the way they want to. Look at Hawkeye! He's just like you, he can't hear very well but he's saved the world, and so can you."

Clint swallows and looks further into the gloom of the vents. 

"Barton," and here Tony's voice grows serious. "That makes you a hero in your own right. The others- we save people, occasionally, but you save those children every day."

Clint finds he can't look at Tony and stares fixedly at a wall instead. 

"Not only that," Tony continues. "When you use your arrows, you never miss. Not once. Steve's got the serum working partly for him, trajectory and angles and rebound, and I've got Jarvis running numbers, but you calculate friction, wind speed, resistance, direction, tension- and you do that all on your own. Now don't mind me," Tony smirks. "But I've had you tested for every known mutant gene at least sixty times, and nada. Nothing. You are 100% human- and you never miss. That makes you better, don't you think?"

"Who are you, and what have you done with Tony Stark?" Clint clears his throat, but he's smiling.

"My moments of compassion are truly rare and a sight to behold," Tony winks. "Now are we getting out of these vents, or are you going to keep stinking the place up with your unwashed asshole?"

"There we go," Clint grins, but pushes open the vent and tumbles out. 

* * *

 

"How the hell did you convince Clint to come down," Steve is shocked, his eyes blown wide. "The last time something like that happened he stayed up there for approximately a week, dropping down on unsuspecting people to steal their food like Mission Impossible."

"I'm very good," Tony rolls his shoulders again, a gesture he seems to do often. "When did you watch Mission Impossible?"

"A couple of weeks ago," Steve blinks and shakes his head. "Don't change the subject!" 

"Listen, I just told him logical truths. If he wants to tell you the rest, just ask," Tony sticks a screwdriver in the mess that is his hair. "It's not my place to tell."

"Tony Stark, respecting personal boundaries? Who the hell are you?" Steve blinks again and seems lost. 

"I can be compassionate," Tony gripes and points at a soldering iron at him. "There's no need to be an ass about it. See- that kind of reaction is why I don't do it often. Pass me that, will you?"

Steve rubs the back of his head sheepishly and gives him the metal part. "Sorry."

"What're you working on, anyway," he moves over and surveys Tony's latest thing. "Is that a coffee machine...with miniature thrusters?" 

"Think about it Steve," Tony babbles. "Never be without coffee. Ever. On a mission on fucking Sealand or some other remote place? Coffee. Instantly. Okay, not instantly, but quick enough. Coffee suited to your taste. Individual taste. Sentient coffee maker. Sentient coffee maker! Fuck yes."

Steve looks at him, wearing an expression that makes Tony swallow and look away. "I fucking love coffee."

"You're obsessed," Steve chuckles and crosses his arms. "You should drink some water."

Tony sticks his tongue out at him, when suddenly the coffee machine he's working beeps and whirrs. "What did it want, Jarvis?"

Jarvis seems a little lost. "It keeps asking for a name."

"It wants a name?"

"It appears so."

"I got no name to give you," Tony sounds stumped. "Coffee Machine Mark 1?"

The coffee machine spits out a gear from its insides with the velocity of a plane taking off. It cracks the nearby cupboard. 

"That gear was important!" He sounds more upset about the loss of the gear than the cracked cupboard, which is what Steve was gaping over. "You've got a fucking attitude problem."

"He just-" Steve begins, but is stopped by both Tony and the coffee machine hissing. "What?"

"This," Tony points at the coffee machine with the soldering iron. "This is a coffee machine. It's got no gender. It's up to it to decide."

The coffee machine beeps in affirmation. 

"It is good enough for me," Tony grins at the coffee machine in a way a father looks at his child. "We'll give you a name later, okay? Fix you up first. Hey- would you like to talk? I can make you talk. Simple words. Yeah?"

The coffee machine beeps twice. Steve doesn't think he can live with the two of them ganging up on him.

* * *

 

"Did you make a coffee machine that beeps?" Clint rubs the back of his neck and takes a long sip from his cup. "Not that I have a problem- this coffee is amazing."

"Yes," Tony says as he sits down and pulls up a program on a tablet. "Yes I did. It needs a name too, you got one?"

"It does sound kinda like R2-D2," Clint shrugs.

The coffee machine whirrs and beeps. 

"I think that was a yes," Tony laughs and forces the program into a holograph state. "Of course it'd be a Star Wars fan."

"Would Star Wars sue?" Clint wrinkles his nose. "I hate it when people sue us. I have to wear clothes and look presentable."

"You should wear clothes period," Tony frowns at Clint's attire, which is baggy sweatpants that hang so low that you could see a pair of bright blue boxers. "Where's your shirt?"

"I think I left it in the Maldives," Clint blinks dazedly. 

"You were on a mission there _last_ week."

"Sounds about right."

Tony ignores him, so Clint wanders over to where he's perched on a sofa. "What're you making now?"

"New arrowhead," Tony grins at him; eyes alight with the mad fire he got when he started crazy inventions. "How's one filled with liquid nitrogen sound?"

"Cool," Clint breathes and joins him, messing about with the dimensions. "Literally. It's literally cool."

"Stop talking if you want it complete," Tony resists the urge to punch him. "Idiot."

"You make a lot of things," Clint observes, eyeing the room. Tony had made the TV, movie player, oven, coffee machine, microwave, thermostat and for some odd reason a water dispenser, all with odd and vaguely annoying functions. The movie player, for instance, would criticise your movie choice when it felt like it. The thermostat gave you an electric shock when you tried to raise it without Tony's approval (how it knew when Tony gave his approval was beyond everyone...except maybe Bruce) and the microwave would beep at the loudest it possibly could when you're trying to secretly make hot pockets at three am. "Why?"

"Because I like it," Tony mumbles as he plays around with the size of the arrowhead. "It's fun."

"It's not," Clint wrinkles his nose and sets his mug onto the table, which immediately starts to shriek. Clint suddenly remembers the table's sensitivity to heat. " _That's_  not fun."

"It is," Tony smirks as he watches Clint rummage through the drawers for a coaster. "The coasters are in the left drawer. Where they always are."

Clint retrieves the coaster and places it under his coffee, and the table mercifully stops screaming. "Is there anything you can't make annoying?"

"You," Tony says in a tone that indicates the conversation is over. "But that's because you already are."

"Dick."

* * *

 

Tony doesn't think he can feel his legs. The room's spinning around, dizzying circle upon dizzying circle. He's relishing in the fact that he doesn't know what he got drunk about in the first place when Steve pushes open the door to room and crosses his arms. For some reason he's wearing a dark grey tuxedo, which makes him look very nice indeed. 

"We missed you at the meeting tonight," Steve's frown deepens. "You know the one with the Secretary of State?"

"The Secretary of State is bullshit," Tony slurs, and blinks hard. He suddenly realises his heart is very heavy. He doesn't know why. Doesn't want to know why either. "I've got more important things to do, Stevie."

"Like drink yourself to death?" Steve picks up an empty whiskey bottle and drops it into the dustbin. "You're picking up bad habits from Jessica. I knew I should never have left the two of you in the same room."

An image of a dark haired woman with a mouth like a sailor's is brought to mind.

"Jones learnt it from me," Tony stumbles and sits heavily on his bed. "And she drank all my good stuff. Expensive stuff. Never let her near my collection again, you hear me? Never. I should start charging. Like a restaurant. Earn a lot more money. I'd charge fucking Richards a fuckton more."

"On what grounds?"

"On the grounds that he's a douchebag who gives a lousy name to science!" Tony slams his head against the wall and winces at the pain. 

His room itself is elegant, with dark wood trimmings and large windows, and a mahogany desk against the wall. His sheets were a dark blue on white, and there were various paintings from local street artists hanging on the walls. It would've been a lovely bedroom, except the floor was strewn with a mass of papers and alcohol, and one section of his wall is covered in complicated differentiation because he'd woken up at night with the idea and couldn't reach paper fast enough. 

"Why are you like this in the first place," Steve sits down next to him, and Tony's mind shortcircuits at the fact that it's Steve, and he's sitting on Tony's bed, and oh fuck now he's lying down, he's lying down on his bed and the area will probably smell of him and he's wearing a tuxedo- "You don't usually get this drunk."

"I am very good," Tony nods. "Very good at, you know, drinking lots. Don't even need to pee."

"Of course."

"You look nice," he mumbles, then has to physically restrain himself from smashing a bottle on his head. 

"Thanks," Steve pulls at his suit, unbuttoning the jacket slowly and setting it aside, showing no signs of awkwardness. "Pepper ordered it for me. Said I should stop wearing the uniform to meetings because it intimidated people."

"You look more intimidating in the suit," Tony's hands scrabble for something to do while his mouth goes on autopilot. "I mean, nothing."

"That's what I thought too," he grins back. "But no, apparently not. Whatever."

There's a moment of silence, until it's broken by Tony reaching for another bottle and tripping over an empty one. 

"You're drunk as hell," Steve wrinkles his nose. "How much have you-"

"I'm not drunk!" 

"Sure you aren't," Steve sounds amused by his antics, but then the tone of his voice deepens and cracks at the last word. "This isn't about what those people said, is it?"

Tony visibly stiffens as the words run back through his mind, like poison in an otherwise perfect river. Villain. Villain, villain,  _villain_. "Fuck off."

"It is," Steve now sounds worried. "Isn't it? God Tony- you know they were just-"

"They were right," Tony mumbles. He squeezes his eyes shut. "I ruined so many lives, Stevie. The blood on my hands- it hurts."

"You didn't know that Ultron would've-"

"I should've fucking seen it coming!" Tony roars. The slur is gone from his voice. "That's my  _job_."

"Your job," Steve says, his voice is dangerous. "Is to do whatever it takes to save people. That's what you tried to do."

"And I fucked up! I fucked it up and I hurt  _everyone_."

"But you created Vision," Steve's voice is still that hard steel, but it's comforting in its own way. "Vision's going to help so many people. That's what you do. From the ashes of a problem you create something that will save people. Look at your iron man suit."

"That doesn't help with the guilt, Steve. You guys didn't even fucking know what I was going to do," Tony's voice rises in pitch and intensity until he was shouting hoarsely. In a jerky, abrupt movement he stalks across the room, hands behind his back as if he's stopping himself from lashing out. "Would you have stopped me if you knew? Would you? Would you have trusted me enough to-"

"Tony," Steve starts, but then pauses. His knee-jerk reaction to the creation of Ultron would've been to shut it down at once, regardless of the potential pros. Guilt wraps it's hand around his heart like a vice.

"You wouldn't have," his words are flying at light speed. "You wouldn't have and we only had a limited time with sceptre, and I was going to save the world, damnit! I was going to _save_  the world."

Steve doesn't think he's ever seen Tony Stark look so heartbroken. He looks almost pitiful in that moment, nothing like the strong, eccentric and egotistical man Steve knew. He wants to go over and hug him and tell him he is just alright. He does not. "You did."

"Not before I broke it! All I did was fix the mess. Now everyone thinks I'm a villain," Tony's voice falters. Then, suddenly, his back straightens and his shoulders even out. His eyes harden. "Never mind."

"Never mind?" Steve asks, incredulous. "You want me to  _never mind_?"

"I'm fine."

"You're fine-" Steve breaks off. "I don't know a lot of things, but I do know that you are not fine."

"It's cool," Tony rolls his shoulders, once twice, and then his face settles. "See? All good. Don't think I'm even drunk anymore."

"Sometimes I think you wear more masks than just the suit," Steve leans over and looks at him, really looks at him, and it feels like Steve is ripping off old bandages and coverings and exposing him. He feels, inexplicably, like he needs to run. "Do you ever take off the mask, and just let Tony Stark breathe?"

"Tony Stark is a billionaire philanthropist and superhero," he replies stiffly, hands tearing at the wrapper on a new bottle of Jack Daniels. "He's also the smartest man on this continent, maybe even the world. He doesn't get to breathe."

"Well he should!" Steve's adamant, his voice rising higher than Tony's heard it off the battlefield. His dress shirt is stretching in the middle. Tony watches a button strain, decides he likes his tie. "Because being underwater all that time- it's hell."

Tony looks at him. "I can hold my breath."

Steve's gotten up by now, he's standing in front of Tony. His chest rises and falls. Tony watches. Steve lifts his hand and almost reaches out, almost touches him. Then he puts it down. "I'll be in my room," Steve whispers, like it's only for him to know. "You're welcome to talk."

"Is that an invitation to your bed?" Tony's slapped his mask back on, superglued it in place. 

Steve shakes his head as he walks away, hands in the pockets of his dress pants. Tony looks at his shoes. They're black. "It's whatever you want it to be Tony," Steve throws over his shoulders, and it's a curveball because Tony didn't see that one coming. 

The door closes with a small click. 

Tony goes down later- he even stands in front of Steve's door. Every cell wants to go in, tell someone, anyone. Tony considers the door handle, decides he doesn't know how to use it and turns away. 

Steve's left his jacket in his room. Tony picks it up and, in the comfort of his own room, puts it on. 

* * *

 

"You look like shit," Natasha Romanova helpfully offers in between negotiating with the toaster. "What've you been doing?"

"Drinking," Tony mumbles. He pops Advil into his mouth and winces. "A lot."

"You should drink water."

"So I've heard," he replies and grabs his coffee from R2-D2. He's just about to put milk in when Steve steps into the kitchen, looking at Tony with a mixture of understanding and disappointment that made his cheeks heat up. He reaches for the tequila instead and pours in a quarter. "What are we doing now?"

"Nothing, actually," Natasha shrugs in between bites of toast. "Everyone's back from their missions. Thor's arguing with the movie recorder, Clint's sleeping and Steve's avoiding your face, for some reason. What did you do?"

Even now, Tony's surprised by her perceptiveness, as he hadn't even noticed that Steve had left without eating. "Nothing."

"My ass."

"Okay, so he told me to talk and I didn't," he shrugs. "So? What did he even expect, anyway."

"He likes you," she rolls her eyes and flops onto the couch with a groan. She'd just come back from two weeks in Tibet, following a Hydra lead. "And he likes it when you tell him things."

"I don't want to tell him things," Tony is aware that he sounds like a petulant child, but inwards his heart is doing the Macarena from just being told that Steve likes him. "He doesn't like me telling him things."

Natasha cracks one eye open. "For a genius, you sure are stupid."

"My problems are inconsequential to the bigger picture," Tony drinks his coffee. "It's the bigger picture that counts."

"You're the engineer," Natasha shoots back. "You tell me. Will a machine still run with a broken gear?"

"No, but-"

"Exactly. You're the broken gear. Fix yourself," she eyes him steadily. "If not everything's just not going to run."

Tony gapes at her. "I can't fix-" he starts, trying to tell the truth. Trying to tell everyone that he can't fix himself, for crying out loud. He cannot, does not understand how someone can take their broken pieces and just glue them together. It's not even fucking tangible. He's left some pieces in the terrorist cell, he's left them in the suit, in the tower, in his dad, and everything had just blown to dust. He was missing too many pieces to ever be whole again. 

"You can fix anything," her voice goes soft, like she's explaining to a child how to cross a busy road. "You're Tony Stark."

"Right," he says bitterly. "I'm Tony fucking Stark."

"I wonder how you guys get anything done around here without me," Natasha puts her feet on the coffee table, which starts to scream again. She kicks the table, hard, and then it suddenly stops, the first time Tony's seen it do so. "You're all useless."

She flashes him a big smile and two thumbs up and Tony laughs in spite of himself. 

* * *

 

Tony stops outside Steve's room. He's already checked with Jarvis to see if he's inside, which he is, if he's free- Tony doesn't want to knock when Steve's jerking off or something (which would actually not be so terrible), but Steve is free and doing nothing, sitting at the chair in front of his desk and sketching. 

Tony's hand rests on the handle. Then he lifts the other one and knocks. 

The door is opened in an instant, Steve's bedhead poking it's way around the doorframe. His eyes widen fractionally upon seeing Tony, his mouth twitches. He notices. It's his job to notice. "Tony?"

"Hi," his head hurts in a sort of distant pounding that he's learnt to ignore over the years. Steve's hand is stained black by pencil lead. "Um, are you busy?"

Steve pushes his stained hand behind his back. "Nope."

This is getting awkward. He can practically feel the tension, like strings, winding through the empty space between them. Tony sighs inwardly and begins to walk away. "Sorry for disturbing."

"Do you want to talk about something?" Steve sounds so earnest that Tony actually stops. 

"Why do you want to hear about my problems so much?"

Steve blinks, tilts his head. "You never tell anyone. It's not healthy."

"I tell Dummy," Tony folds his arms across his chest. "That's good enough. He even replies sometimes."

"He's an arm."

"I'm working on it."

"You're my friend, Tony," Steve grins at him, a lazy grin that snakes its way up his face, encourages one in return. "It's what friends do."

"Right," Tony mumbles, ignoring the way his cheeks heat up. "Okay, I'll talk, but just to inform you I haven't slept in two days."

"Come inside for a little homemade tea," Steve motions toward his room. "If you fall asleep, well, that wouldn't be the worst thing."

* * *

 

"Fuck,” Tony breathes. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.”

“I’ll alert the others,” Jarvis says, and then an alarm begins to blare throughout the compound.

Clint walks in missing his pants, his shirt too long and dangling over his thighs. It’s got a llama with a crown on it saying, “kiss me, I’m French.” Tony does not know how or where he manages to find such atrocious shirts, but it’s becoming some sort of talent. “What’s going on,” he mumbles, dropping onto the sofa. “Did you find Banner?”

“Ah, no,” Tony wrinkles his nose. “You might want to suit up.”

“It’s that kind of emergency?” Clint rubs his face. “I literally just fell asleep.”

Natasha skids around the corner, already dressed, her knives at the side. She sighs when she sees Clint falling asleep on the sofa and drops his suit on top of him. “You’re hopeless,” she grins and laughs when Clint gives her the middle finger. “Honestly.”

Thor opts to casually stroll in, swinging his hammer around as if it was a game. “Have you found a worthy opponent?” He asks, eyes glinting with the promise of a fight. “Or is it the Doctor?”

“I haven’t found Bruce,” Tony rubs the back of his neck and starts to rapidly program his suit. “He’s becoming very good. It’s an insult to my intelligence.”

“I have absolute faith in your capabilities, man of iron,” Thor hits him on the back with so much force that Tony winces. “You are good at finding people.”

Finally, Steve bursts through the door, his hair damp and sticking to his forehead and his pants haphazardly thrown on. He’s missing a shirt; Tony realises dazedly, and has to tear his eyes away to look back at the computer screen.

“I was in the shower,” Steve says by way of explanation. “What’s up?”

Tony gets up and stretches, before moving whatever had been on the computer screen into a holographic form. “First, you all are so fucking lucky I do not sleep and have the time to check downtown security cameras for _fun._ You all can pat me on the back later.”

“Get on with it,” Clint mumbles and pushes his face into a pillow.

“Shut up. Now as I was saying,” Tony points to the first video. “Anyone recognize this motherfucking kid?”

“No way,” Steve blinks and pushes his hair up so now it resided in a sort of quiff that was distractingly attractive. “Not that guy.”

“Ten points to Cap,” Tony rolls his shoulders and stares hard at the holographic screen. Clint sits up and starts to sharpen a knife with a menacing shiik, shiik. “Now, we don’t know his name, and the blood we scraped off the floor had zero matches. So if any of you can think of a decent name other than that motherfucking kid you all should let me know. Next- from what I can figure out, he’s a mutant, and he can control liquids. Not all, but some. He used a teleporter that was alien in origin, and he’s really good.”

“Good?” Natasha narrows her eyes. “How good?”

“He’s graceful, doesn’t use more force than necessary. But he gets angry very easily and that throws off his shots- makes him more vulnerable. You all leave that to me and Barton. Thor, the lightning- when he’s using his abilities, hit the liquid; hopefully it’ll hurt him too. Cap- well, do what you always do, I suppose.”

“Suit up!” Tony stares at the computer screen, because Steve was crossing his arms and it was too much. Everything was too much. “I’ll explain more on the way.”

* * *

“Avengers,” the man smiles, He’s standing alone an office building, surrounded by a liquid. “Nice to meet you.”

“Fuck off,” Clint snaps and shoots at him- a move that was completely ineffective.

“That was useful,” the man snaps the arrow in half. “I see you’ve brought the spy and the Viking.”

Thor stiffens, and Tony’s suit warns of an electrical storm. “Thor- no!” Tony tries to say, because his suit had just finished calibrating the liquid, but it was too late.

“I am not a VIKING!” Thor roars and the whole place is filled with the crackling of lightning- and the kerosene on the floor explodes.

So now the building is on fire, and but at least it isn't Tony’s fault. How could he have known that that kid could manipulate kerosene? It is fucking frustrating.

 “Cap?” Tony searches the smoke for Steve. His mask could filter out the smoke easily, but Steve- Steve couldn’t. “Cap!”

“Sir, life sign found on third floor,” Jarvis informs him. “It appears to match-”

Tony takes off, moving through the building until he finds Steve stumbling blindly through the blackness.  “I got you, Cap,” Tony says and takes his arm, going out the window and bringing him into the fresh air.

“Thanks,” Steve chokes, but then his eyes widen and his lips try to form a warning. Tony notices. He always notices Steve. “Get down!”

Tony doesn’t make it, and he’s hit by the liquid that the man is manipulating and is thrown across the square. A cement block lands on Steve and he goes down. “Cap!” Tony shouts, the life reading on his screen flickering between alive and dead.

“Do you love him?” The man asks, his face is twisted and singed. “I don’t hear you cry out for anyone but him.”

Tony aims a missile at him, but thinks twice when the man gestures at the amount of explosive he has stacked around the block.

He walks over to him like a model on a catwalk, slowly but surely, knowing exactly what they want and going for it. He leans over Tony, grinning garishly. He’s bleeding from where Natasha had got him with her knives, and the limp in his thigh must have been from Clint. The others are occupied, fighting small liquid things that seem to be moderately sentient.

“Iron Man,” the man gloats, running a gloved hand down the side of Tony’s mask. “Not so invincible now, are we?”

“I never said I was you lump,” Tony gasps as liquid starts to crush the inside of his armour. “Fuck off.”

“You’ve always amused me,” the man grins again. “The others seem so much more human than you, always encased in a robot. Let’s fix that, shall we?”

The liquid pries at his mask and wrenches it off. “How do you survive with all the media attention, always pretending to be something you are not?”

“I do just fine.” Tony’s face hurts, everything hurts. He struggles to get up, but then he realises the liquid was kerosene, and then knew he couldn’t even get off a shot without blowing up.

“Do you now? Is that why you look as if you’ve been sustaining yourself on copious amounts of alcohol and two hours of sleep a day? It is not romantic, you know,” the man sits down next to him, the liquid keeping him pinned. “It’s just sad.”

Steve rushes over to him, but the man pins him to the wall with the kerosene and freezes it. “We can’t have your boyfriend ruining this moment, can we?”

“God, could you shut up for just one minute!” Tony snaps. “Jesus.”

“You take my mercy for granted, Stark,” the man growls, quite literally. “You better watch that tongue. You think you’re so good,” he actually hisses. “You think you can save the world, but you cannot. You never can.”

“Listen everyone!” The man yells, and his voice is again echoed seemingly against the known laws of physics. “This is Tony Stark. He can fix anyone, anything, everything, but he cannot fix himself.”

"I could kill you if I wanted," his face is now a grotesque picture of elation. "You know I could."

"Course you could," Tony says easily, despite being pinned under him. "But a dedicated sparrow could too. You're not special."

The man's face twists abruptly, and he snarls and pushes his fingers into Tony's arc reactor. 

"Oh, Icarus," the man smiles and digs his fingers deeper into Tony's chest. "You've got the sun in your heart- but one day it will burn you from the inside out."

"I think you're forgetting something," Tony grins, his mask secure despite all this. "My heart does this."

The man blinks, and then Tony channels all power into his arc reactor and shoots him square in the chest. The place ignites, and the last thing Tony can feel is a searing heat.

* * *

“They’re asking for you, Tony,” Steve says as he steps into Tony’s room. “They’re asking for the man who saved New York.”

“I killed him,” Tony rubs the bandages on his arms. He’d managed to escape burns on his face in what his doctor said was a complete miracle, but where the kerosene had been most concentrated it had quite literally melted through his armour. “That’s not quite saving by the Captain America handbook, is it?”

“You had no choice,” Steve frowns as he sits next to Tony on the bed. “But yes, I would’ve liked for him to be tried by the Law.”

“You’re predictable, you know that,” Tony smiles without humour and winces when he moves. “What’re you here for?”

  
“To tell you something,” Steve mumbles abashedly now. “I overheard what the man told you.”

“He said a lot of things,” Tony deadpans, trying to end the conversation. “None of it matters.”

Steve studies him. His blue eyes seem deeper today, darker, more daring. Tony actually feels afraid by the look in his eyes. Then he reaches out and pulls Tony into a one armed hug that should have honestly felt less good than it did. “You don’t have to fix yourself, you know.”

Tony stiffens; Steve can feel the tension flooding his veins, his walls starting to come up. “You- what?”

“I said, you don’t have to fix yourself,” Steve say again, his breath hot against Tony’s neck. “You’re alright like this.”

“Everyone else says I have to,” Tony is incredulous. “I’m the broken gear. I have to be fixed.”

“Can you?”

Tony is floored. “Since when have you been this perceptive?”

“Since always,” he chuckles. “You underestimate me.”

Tony doesn’t say anything for a while, but then he lies back down on his bed and stares at the ceiling. It is half an invitation, leaving the left side open and free, and is pleasantly surprised when Steve actually takes up the offer and crawls to the other side, pulling Tony toward him. It is the most intimate Tony has felt in years. “I can’t fix myself,” Tony starts after a long time. He mumbles his words against Steve’s neck. “Too many pieces missing.”

‘It’s okay,” Steve replies. Tony can feel his heartbeat. “You don’t have to do it alone.”

“Why?”

“I can help you,” Steve huffs out a laugh. “I may not be very good with machines, but I do know you very well.”

“Not well enough.”

“So tell me, then,” he traces a circle on Tony’s arm. “What’s your favourite colour?”

Tony studies Steve’s face. He’s got very long lashes, but they’re such a light blond that you can’t normally tell. His hair falls in his face, his fringe sweeping into his eyes occasionally. His lips, Tony decides, are very kissable. He looks like marble statue in the half-light. His eyes are also very blue.

“Blue,” Tony says.

“Why?”

Tony pushes his face into the crook of Steve’s neck and decides that maybe, he could talk. Perhaps he could just stay here, forever. He’ll get cold coffee later, and Steve would take tea with two sugars, because that’s how he likes it. Peppermint is his favourite. It’s like this, wrapped in Steve’s arms that he falls asleep. He’ll answer Steve’s question later. Maybe he’ll even ask him what his favourite colour is.


End file.
